Species Diversity in Space and Time

A lively account of the big questions about biodiversity being posed by ecologists today.

Michael L. Rosenzweig (Author)

9780521499521, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 4 May 1995

460 pages, 181 b/w illus.
24.7 x 17.4 x 2.4 cm, 0.785 kg

'I will recommend Species Diversity in Space and Time to my graduate students to read because the good bits outweigh the bad. It will give us much to think about, and should generate some lively debates.' John H. Lawton, Nature

Why do larger areas have more species? What makes diversity so high near the equator? Has the number of species grown during the past 600 million years? Does habitat diversity support species diversity, or is it the other way around? What reduces diversity in ecologically productive places? At what scales of space and time do diversity patterns hold? Do the mechanisms that produce them vary with scale? This book examines these questions and many others, by employing both theory and data in the search for answers. Surprisingly, many of the questions have reasonably likely answers. By identifying these, attention can be turned toward life's many, still-unexplained diversity patterns. As evolutionary ecologists race to understand biodiversity before it is too late, this book will help set the agenda for diversity research into the next century.

Preface
1. The road ahead
2. Patterns in space
3. Temporal patterns
4. Dimensionless patterns
5. Speciation
6. Extinction
7. Evolution of the relationship between habitat diversity and species diversity
8. Species-area curves in ecological time
9. Species-area curves in evolutionary time
10. Paleobiological patterns
11. Other patterns with dynamic roots
12. Energy flow and diversity
13. A hierarchical dynamic puzzle
References
Index.

Subject Areas: Applied ecology [RNC], Ecological science, the Biosphere [PSAF]